During the June 25 sitting of the Senate Special Select Committee examining proposals for an Elderly Care and Protection Act, Mrs Sherene Golding Campbell urged members to push for the tabling of the committee’s report in the Upper House.

“I have no idea when the discretionary powers will be exercised, but I do not want for the work of this committee to go to waste. And the dissolution of Parliament without landing a report in the Senate would mean that the committee would have to be re-established and reconstituted, and not necessarily mean that it could just pick up where it left off because the membership might be completely different,” Senator Golding Campbell told her colleagues.

Current events have overtaken her appeal, even though there is no announcement from Prime Minister Dr Andrew Holness of an election date. However, we hope that after Jamaicans go to the polls the work of the committee will not be placed on a shelf somewhere in the State apparatus and that, when Parliament reopens, legislators will act on the recommendations.

Our appeal in this matter has its foundation in some of the revelations made during the sittings of the committee.

Readers will recall that at the May 13, 2025 sitting the committee heard of a number of instances of despicable treatment being meted out to the elderly, among them an elderly man “found starving in his apartment” after his accounts had been drained by his young lover; the “sexual abuse of older men by younger women who seduce them to gain control of their money”; and caregivers who clean out the bank accounts of their frail employers.

Those cases were highlighted by the Caribbean Community of Retired Persons in its call for the country to enact laws protecting seniors from abuse.

As if all that were not heartbreaking enough, the committee, at its May 27 sitting, was stunned by reports of elderly Jamaicans being turned out of their homes, particularly those living in strata properties; being preyed on by developers who resort to criminal tactics to get their properties; and lawyers making off with their retainer fees.

Senator Golding Campbell correctly noted that there are existing laws to deal with those matters. At the same time, she noted the call by representatives of the Matilda’s Corner District Consultative Committee, who made the submission that the Commission of Strata Corporations should give attention to the plight of elderly residents in strata properties.

A lot more was presented to the committee and we have no doubt that its report comprises sound recommendations for the well-being of senior citizens.

As we have argued before, the experiences highlighted in submissions to the committee should not be ignored, especially given data provided by the Planning Institute of Jamaica that the elderly population — people aged 65 and over — is expected to double by 2050, when they will constitute almost 20 per cent of the total populace.

And even as we acknowledge that the Government is doing as much as it can for the elderly through a number of programmes, we reiterate our expectation that, with the data showing that our dependent elderly population is increasing, our resolve must be to increase focus on areas of need, among them pensions, health insurance, social protection services, and the build-out of more infirmaries and assisted living facilities.